Chapter 79#

The Disabled Big Shot’s Stepson#

To be honest, Ye Shiyuan was momentarily stunned when he saw Lin Xiaodong raise his hand.

But he quickly reacted and asked, “Xiaodong, what do you want to exchange for?”

“That.” Lin Xiaodong pointed toward the corner.

Everyone followed his finger, only to be greatly disappointed to find that it was a wooden easel, accompanied by some paints, brushes, and similar items.

Ye Shiyuan knew Lin Xiaodong liked to paint, but he still hadn’t expected the boy to use such a precious medal to exchange for something so inconsequential. After all…

He steadied himself and asked again, “Are you sure?”

“Sure,” Lin Xiaodong said decisively.

Lin Qi let out a loud sneer through his nose. “A fool is a fool.”

At the corner of the second floor, a black-haired man sat in a wheelchair, silently watching the magnificent hall below.

A thin blanket with exquisite embroidery covered his legs. Although he had difficulty moving, his clothes were neatly pressed, and his back remained straight; there wasn’t a hint of despondency about him.

Instead, it was those pitch-black, icy eyes that made one’s heart turn cold with a single glance.

A subordinate pushing the wheelchair behind him sighed. “Out of sixteen children, it seems only twelve are somewhat smart.”

The man said nothing.

His gaze lingered on Lin Xiaodong, who was holding the easel, for a few seconds. After a moment, he withdrew his gaze without any fluctuation.

“Nothing much to see. Let’s go back.”

As if sensing a gaze from above, Lin Xiaodong frowned and looked up thoughtfully, but saw no one.

The sixteen children were taken to their living quarters in the castle. Lin Qi gave the easel in Lin Xiaodong’s hands a look of disdain, but then a flicker of restlessness appeared on his face as if he had thought of something. However, his little scheme was quickly crushed by the supervisor distributing the room keys—

“Lin Qi, first room on the left.”

“What about him?” Lin Qi pointed at Lin Xiaodong, asking persistently. “We came together, he’s my cousin, shouldn’t he stay in the same room as me?”

Calling him “cousin” at a time like this… Lin Xiaodong rolled his eyes and took his key from the supervisor.

“You won’t be staying together. Lin Xiaodong, turn left and go straight, the room at the end of the hall.” After a pause, the supervisor added, “That room is closer to the stairs. The castle is very large, and animals from the forest often run in to steal food. Remember not to wander around the castle at night, and don’t come out no matter what sound you hear.”

“Understood.”

Lin Xiaodong wondered if this place was haunted. That would actually be quite interesting.

After a day’s travel, he was tired. Entering the room, he looked around: besides a large bed, there was a desk, a European-style sofa with two cushions, and a small coffee table. On the table was an A4 sheet of paper listing about a dozen castle rules.

For example, no violating the curfew, no disobeying the teachers’ orders, no damaging others’ property or fighting within monitored areas… But because he was too sleepy, Lin Xiaodong only skimmed it and put it down before finishing.

He moved the easel near the window, lifted a corner of the curtain, and looked out. The room faced the artificial lake. Now that the lawn lights were off, the desolate garden felt a bit more eerie under the night sky.

“It really does look like a haunted house,” Lin Xiaodong muttered to himself.

But that was impossible. He had asked the system, and this world had no supernatural elements; it was a pure modern society.

He let down the curtain, changed into the pajamas the Lin family had prepared for them, threw himself onto the bed, and fell into a deep sleep.

In the early hours of the morning.

Lin Xiaodong, lying in bed, was suddenly awakened by an unusual noise.

He opened his eyes and stared straight at the ceiling.

Just as the supervisor had mentioned earlier, a low, beast-like sound of heavy breathing reached his ears.

Lin Xiaodong originally thought it was a wild boar from the mountains that had broken in to steal food because it was hungry. He flipped over and covered his head with a pillow, preparing to go back to sleep.

Unexpectedly, after ten minutes, the sound had not only failed to cease but had intensified, accompanied by the ear-piercing sound of nails scratching against something—this was no wild boar.

“Damn it!”

The boy, his sleep disturbed, sat up with messy hair and a face full of resentment.

He shook off the goosebumps on his skin, hopped off the bed aggressively, found the basin that had been distributed to his room, and disassembled the long plastic handle of the broom. He pressed the plastic basin against the ceiling to act as a megaphone and used the pole to jab upward forcefully five or six times.

“Have some public decency! Howling like a ghost in the middle of the night—this is when normal people sleep!”

In the silence of the night, the boy’s vigorous shout echoed through the castle.

The master bedroom on the second floor instantly fell silent.

The family doctor and nurse standing by the bed looked at each other, wondering who was bold enough to shout at Lin Pei. Ye Shiyuan, who knew the inside story, was instantly drenched in a cold sweat.

He lamented in his heart. Seeing Lin Xiaodong’s steadiness and being the oldest among them, he had arranged for him to stay directly below the master bedroom and had specifically instructed the supervisor distributing the keys to make sure the boy behaved.

He hadn’t expected Lin Xiaodong to not only ignore him but to start causing trouble on his very first night in the castle!

Because this castle was remote but scenic, it had been used by successive heads of the Lin family as a place for recuperation and vacation in modern times. Since Lin Pei became disabled in his legs, he had grown extremely weary of the endless visits and hypocritical pleasantries, so he simply moved his office here.

However, because his old injuries had not yet healed, the man often found it difficult to sleep at night due to pain. He would even cause extensive destruction in the room out of irritability and depression, which was why those beast-like sounds were made.

“Head of the family, the child is ignorant, it’s my fault.” Looking at the man leaning against the headboard with clenched fists and a pale, grim face, Ye Shiyuan immediately apologized, carefully observing his expression. “I’ll have him move into a room with his cousin right away… Or, do you intend to send him straight home?”

Actually, for Lin Xiaodong, that might not be a bad thing.

Ye Shiyuan knew very well that although Lin Xiaodong’s parents once held high prestige within the family, when a person dies, their influence fades like a blown-out lamp. Moreover, the couple had been dead for many years.

He had heard some rumors about the inheritance as well. Although he felt sympathetic, as an outsider, Ye Shiyuan could only sigh.

Lin Pei closed his eyes, silent for a moment, and said hoarsely, “No need.”

Ye Shiyuan hurried to say, “Then I’ll go downstairs and tell him—”

“Stop.” The man lifted his eyelids and stared at him coldly. Seeing the cautious expression on Ye Shiyuan’s face, the corner of his mouth curled into a sneer. He then swept his gaze over the doctors and nurses in the room. “No one is allowed to tell him, do you hear me?”

“…Yes.”

The three people present were somewhat confused, but in the end, they could only attribute it to Lin Pei’s pride.

After all, he was a hero of his generation, rising from a high-spirited young talent and the head of a major family to a disabled person who could only be pushed around in a wheelchair… The gap was unimaginable.

As a result, their attitude toward Lin Pei became even more cautious.

Downstairs, after waiting for a while, Lin Xiaodong found that the noise had finally stopped and was satisfied.

He was always big-hearted and couldn’t be bothered to think about what others next door would think of his voice. After putting his things back, he crawled back into the blankets and fell asleep again in no time.

The next day.

The large clock on the castle roof struck seven on the dot. The sixteen children opened their bleary eyes and split into two groups, boys and girls, to wash up in the east and west bathrooms. Then, led by the supervisor, they sat at both ends of the long table in the dining room, waiting for breakfast.

However, there were no bread, eggs, or milk as they had imagined. The cafeteria chef responsible for the children’s meals simply wiped his hands calmly and placed a menu in front of them.

One piece of toast — Value: 1 Medal Point; Three eggs — Value: 1 Medal Point; One glass of milk — Value: 1 Medal Point; One grilled lamb chop — Value: 3 Medal Points; … ……

When this menu appeared, all sixteen children were dumbfounded.

Those who had expected this were only worried about why the prices were so high, while the children who had exchanged their medals for toys last night mostly had panicked expressions, frantically calculating whether their remaining points were enough for a few pieces of bread.

“Mr. Supervisor,” the boy with the pageboy haircut raised his hand again. “I want to ask, what happens if we run out of medals but are hungry and need to eat? You won’t just let us starve to death, will you?”

“Of course not,” the supervisor said calmly. “You can also buy on credit from us, which means borrowing medals to exchange for food.”

The pageboy haircut frowned. “But if there’s no limit, then what’s the point of the medals?”

“There is a point,” the supervisor gave him a gentle smile. “The medals we lend out do not come out of thin air. Instead, the corresponding amount is randomly deducted from everyone’s current pool of medals and distributed to the borrower—so, please use this function cautiously to avoid conflicts among your peers.”

At those words, everyone became tense, and the way they looked at each other became much more cautious.

Lin Xiaodong lowered his head and whispered to the system, “Isn’t this just a mini-society? It seems Lin Pei really wants us to compete with each other.”

And those so-called rules that couldn’t be violated seemed reasonable but weren’t rigorous at all. For example, not damaging others’ property or fighting—perfectly normal rules—had to be qualified with a premise: they must be within monitored areas.

This meant that as long as one found a location without surveillance, or could disable the surveillance without being discovered, one could act as wantonly as they pleased.

“It seems Lin Pei really has become psychologically distorted because of his disability.” Lin Xiaodong sighed in wonder. He queued up to exchange for three eggs and a piece of toast. Since water was supplied without limit, the eggs he couldn’t finish could be kept for a few days.

System: “How so?”

Lin Xiaodong chuckled and took a big bite of the toast.

“A successor selected like this,” he said, “just like the Lin Qi in the information, will 99% be a psychologically distorted madman, the kind who has plundering, competitiveness, and cruelty etched into their very bones. So when this successor takes power, the first person they’ll get rid of is Lin Pei himself, the old wolf king. Doing this is basically equivalent to slow suicide.”

However, Lin Xiaodong couldn’t help but think, perhaps, this was Lin Pei’s true goal?